Failing frowned. “I envy you. It is a great thing to have no sense of beauty.”
“I think I have a sense of beauty, which leads me astray if I am not careful.”
“But this is a great relief to me. I thought the present day young man was an agnostic! Isn’t agnosticism all the thing at Cambridge?”
“Nothing is the ‘thing’ at Cambridge. If a few men are agnostic there, it is for some grave reason, not because they are irritated with the way the parson says his vowels.”
Agnes intervened. “Well, I side with Aunt Emily. I believe in ritual.”
“Don’t, my dear, side with me. He will only say you have no sense of religion either.”
“Excuse me,” said Rickie, perhaps he too was a little hungry,—“I never suggested such a thing. I never would suggest such a thing. Why cannot you understand my position? I almost feel it is that you won’t.”
“I try to understand your position night and day dear—what you mean, what you like, why you came to Cadover, and why you stop here when my presence is so obviously unpleasing to you.”
“Luncheon is served,” said Leighton, but he said it too late. They discussed the beef and the moselle in silence. The air was heavy and ominous. Even the Wonham boy was affected by it, shivered at times, choked once, and hastened anew into the sun. He could not understand clever people.
Agnes, in a brief anxious interview, advised the culprit to take a solitary walk. She would stop near Aunt Emily, and pave the way for an apology.
“Don’t worry too much. It doesn’t really matter.”
“I suppose not, dear. But it seems a pity, considering we are so near the end of our visit.”
“Rudeness and Grossness matter, and I’ve shown both, and already I’m sorry, and I hope she’ll let me apologize. But from the selfish point of view it doesn’t matter a straw. She’s no more to us than the Wonham boy or the boot boy.”
“Which way will you walk?”
“I think to that entrenchment. Look at it.” They were sitting on the steps. He stretched out his hand to Cadsbury Rings, and then let it rest for a moment on her shoulder. “You’re changing me,” he said gently. “God bless you for it.”
He enjoyed his walk. Cadford was a charming village and for a time he hung over the bridge by the mill. So clear was the stream that it seemed not water at all, but some invisible quintessence in which the happy minnows and the weeds were vibrating. And he paused again at the Roman crossing, and thought for a moment of the unknown child. The line curved suddenly: certainly it was dangerous. Then he lifted his eyes to the down. The entrenchment showed like the rim of a saucer, and over its narrow line peeped the summit of the central tree. It looked interesting. He hurried forward, with the wind behind him.
The Rings were curious rather than impressive. Neither embankment was over twelve feet high, and the grass on them had not the exquisite green of Old Sarum, but was grey and wiry. But Nature (if she arranges anything) had arranged that from them, at all events, there should be a view. The whole system of the country lay spread before Rickie, and he gained an idea of it that he never got in his elaborate ride. He saw how all the water converges at Salisbury; how Salisbury lies in a shallow basin, just at the change of the soil. He saw to the north the Plain, and the stream of the Cad flowing down from it, with a tributary that broke out suddenly, as the chalk streams do: one village had clustered round the source and clothed itself with trees. He saw Old Sarum, and hints of the Avon valley, and the land above Stone Henge. And behind him he saw the great wood beginning unobtrusively, as if the down too needed shaving; and into it the road to London slipped, covering the bushes with white dust. Chalk made the dust white, chalk made the water clear, chalk made the clean rolling outlines of the land, and favoured the grass and the distant coronals of trees. Here is the heart of our island: the Chilterns, the North Downs, the South Downs radiate hence. The fibres of England unite in Wiltshire, and did we condescend to worship her, here we should erect our national shrine.
People at that time were trying to think imperially, Rickie wondered how they did it, for he could not imagine a place larger than England. And other people talked of Italy, the spiritual fatherland of us all. Perhaps Italy would prove marvellous. But at present he conceived it as something exotic, to be admired and reverenced, but not to be loved like these unostentatious fields. He drew out a book, it was natural for him to read when he was happy, and to read out loud,—and for a little time his voice disturbed the silence of that glorious afternoon. The book was Shelley, and it opened at a passage that he had cherished greatly two years before, and marked as “very good.”
“I never was attached to that great sect
Whose doctrine is that each one should select
Out of the world a mistress or a friend,
And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend
To cold oblivion,—though it is the code
Of modern morals, and the beaten road
Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread
Who travel to their home among the dead
By the broad highway of the world,—and so
With one sad friend, perhaps a jealous foe,
The dreariest and the longest journey go.”
It was “very good”—fine poetry, and, in a sense, true. Yet he was surprised that he had ever selected it so vehemently. This afternoon it seemed a little inhuman. Half a mile off two lovers were keeping company where all the villagers could see them. They cared for no one else; they felt only the pressure of each other, and so progressed, silent and oblivious, across the land. He felt them to be nearer the truth than Shelley. Even if they suffered or quarrelled, they would have been nearer the truth. He wondered whether they were Henry Adams and Jessica Thompson, both of this parish, whose banns had been asked for the second time in the church this morning. Why could he not marry on fifteen shillings a-week? And be looked at them with respect, and wished that he was not a cumbersome gentleman.
Presently he saw something less pleasant—his aunt’s pony carriage. It had crossed the railway, and was advancing up the Roman road along by the straw sacks. His impulse was to retreat, but someone waved to him. It was Agnes. She waved continually, as much as to say, “Wait for us.” Mrs. Failing herself raised the whip in a nonchalant way. Stephen Wonham was following on foot, some way behind. He put the Shelley back into his pocket and waited for them. When the carriage stopped by some hurdles he went down from the embankment and helped them to dismount. He felt rather nervous.
His aunt gave him one of her disquieting smiles, but said pleasantly enough, “Aren’t the Rings a little immense? Agnes and I came here because we wanted an antidote to the morning service.”
“Pang!” said the church bell suddenly; “pang! pang!” It sounded petty and ludicrous. They all laughed. Rickie blushed, and Agnes, with a glance that said “apologize,” darted away to the entrenchment, as though unable to restrain her curiosity.
“The pony won’t move,” said Mrs. Failing. “Leave him for Stephen to tie up. Will you walk me to the tree in the middle? Booh! I’m tired. Give me your arm—unless you’re tired as well.”
“No. I came out partly
